A Fine Pretense
by Some1tookmyname
Summary: What I imagine it must have been like in the Brennan-Booth house after the Season 8 finale.


Hello! It's been a while, but WHOA! That finale! Cruelly brilliant and so painful for our favorite partners. My heart hurts for them and this...probably won't help much! LOL! But it's what came out. So here you go.

Special thanks to BlindAssasin, Laffers and the JenLovesBones. True friends, all.

**B&B**

_"You still knew that everything wasn't fine."_

_"I hoped it would be, you know, in the future."_

_"Only if we admit that it's not fine, now."_

_~Brennan and Booth, The Partners in the Divorce._

**B&B**

He had existed in two worlds.

He'd been living in a different world: A world of hello kisses and mid-conversation kisses and goodnight kisses and kisses offered and given in the middle of the night. Lips on lips, tongues tasting and dancing, hips pressed together, hands roaming and stroking, skin blazing hot even on the coldest nights. A world of lucky catches and good throws and teasing and ugly hula lamps next to real artifacts. A world of not-so-missing jerky and park dates and _wedding plans_, for God's sake.

And now he was living here. This second world. Here, where everything was "fine."

She said it at least 10 times a day, but it might as well have been 1,000.

It was fine if he put the baby in bed.

It was fine if he worked late.

It was fine Sweets came for dinner.

Fine, fine, fine.

She was fine. He was fine.

They were fine.

Except they weren't.

Not even close.

He'd done this to them. He knew that.

Moreover, he'd done this to her.

He'd crept into bed that first night, that night he'd broken her heart, and knew she wasn't asleep. He wouldn't sleep either, he was sure.

They were maybe two feet apart.

Two feet and a mountain of pain that threatened to crumble and bury them both.

He'd done this.

"Bones…"

"It's fine, Booth. Weddings are really quite a waste of money, anyway and with your desire to split everything fifty/fifty, the kind of celebration I assumed you wanted would have cost you quite a bit. This is far more logical."

"Right. Logical. But—"

"I'm very tired, Booth. This week has been exhausting. Can we just sleep, please?"

"Sure."

There was no kiss goodnight.

There was also no sleeping.

And no more talking.

Just more pretending.

She got out of bed first the next morning, earlier than usual. She showered, dressed, and soon he could smell that she had made coffee.

Normal.

Fine.

"Can you take Christine to daycare?" She asked once he made his way to the kitchen. "I want to get an early start." She didn't quite meet his eyes, didn't pour any coffee for him.

"Sure. I just can't pick her up."

"That's fine. I'll get her."

"Okay."

Silence stretched between them, taut and vibrating, until she broke it.

"I will have to tell Angela to stop planning. She'll be disappointed."

"I'm sorry." He didn't mean about Angela.

"It's fine. She'll get over it."

"You think?"

She hesitated so slightly he thought he might have imagined it. Then, "I will see you later, Booth."

She did not kiss him goodbye.

He thought that was probably fine, too. He didn't deserve it, anyway.

He heard Christine on the monitor, her normally sweet morning chatter turning into a harsh and biting demand that someone come get her _right now_.

Together they watched from Christine's window as Brennan pulled out of the driveway. As her car turned down the street, Booth buried his nose in his daughter's soft blonde hair.

"I hurt Mommy."

"Mama."

"Yeah. Your mama…she doesn't deserve this."

"Mama!"

Booth kissed her cheek and began their morning, misery and guilt making every movement heavy and awkward.

The entire day was like that.

Brennan came home late, Christine asleep on her shoulder. She went straight upstairs and put the baby to bed, without a word.

She never came back down.

So he went to bed, too.

And the next days were just the same.

Weeks of fine.

She, existing in the pain.

He, existing in the guilt.

Neither one of them managing well.

Neither of them really living.

She didn't kiss him, offered no affection. Just avoidance and pretense.

He tried.

"I love you, Bones," he whispered into the night, those 2 feet and the mountain between them still.

"I love you, as well."

He didn't feel any better.

Neither did she.

She tried, too, a few nights later. "Are you alright, Booth? You seem…tense."

He broke. "No. I'm not. Bones, I…I hurt you. I hurt us. I just..." God, how he wanted to just tell her.

"I'm fine, Booth. I am. We are. I promise."

He rolled to his side to look at her and his heart sparked with a tiny hope when she did the same. "I shouldn't have forced you into it." It wasn't what he wanted to say, but it was the best he could do.

"You didn't force me into it." She met his eyes. "But you did force me out of it."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"I've been pretending to understand."

"I know that, too."

"Will you explain it to me, someday?"

He swallowed and asked the question that had terrified him since pain had taken permanent residence in her eyes. "Are we gonna make it to someday?"

Even in the dark he could see her tears catching in her lashes. "We'll be fine."

"Promise?" It was a child-like request for reassurance.

She reached out, tracing his jaw with her finger. "I promise to try. I don't understand and I feel…angry and…betrayed. But I trust you. I always have, even when it doesn't make any sense."

He closed his eyes, her touch and her words and her faith in him, simultaneously twisting him further into knots and easing his soul in a way only his partner could do.

"I love you," he whispered.

Her smile was weak and sad. "I love you, too."

They were closer than they'd been in weeks, the mountain between them a little less daunting, now.

There was work to be done, amends to be made.

They weren't fine now.

But they would be.

Maybe.


End file.
